I Held Your Heart In My Hand
by kmgproductionz
Summary: It has been a long day. And the last thing she expected was to have a pirate standing on her doorstep in the middle of the night asking for forgiveness.
1. Chapter 1

My first Sleeping Hook fic, previously published on archiveofourown under username; ohhitherekate. Enjoy!

* * *

><p>Of all the things he had done in the past three hundred years, Killian Jones never felt the need to apologize. That was his way of life. It was a way to survive. But now that he was living here in this hell-hole known as <em>Storybrooke, <em>he supposed he should make amends to those who he had wronged.

Swan wanted nothing to do with him.

(Though he had apologized numerous times)

The Charmings wanted nothing to do with him

(He apologized once)

The only person who gave him the time of day was Baelfire.

(Neal now)

Belle told him to go to Hell.

(_Darling, I'm in it_)

He'd die before he apologized to Rumpelstiltskin.

Maybe that was all he had left to do.

_Die. _

No.

Not yet. He still had one more person on his list to apologize to.

A pretty little princess who wore a lilac dress made of silks. A princess who trusted him and he took advantage of. He already knew what she'd say, knew she'd slam the door in his face. Perhaps she'd laugh at him.

_No, _he thought. _She's too kind to laugh. Even at a scoundrel like me. _

He shouldn't have waited this long to apologize to her. He should have done it back in the Enchanted Forest. But when Queen Snow spoke of the little princess's pregnancy, he couldn't work up the courage to apologize to the mother to be. He had stolen something precious from her.

Her heart.

In a way, he supposed, he violated her.

_You're a pirate. Pirates violate pretty little things every day. _

She didn't deserve that though. All the pretty little princess wanted to do was help from the start.

So here he stood on the princess's (he supposed now Queen) doorstep. Neal had given him the address. He wanted to help Hook make amends with the people he had wronged.

"_Are you doing this for Emma?" _Neal had asked.

"_Believe it or not, I'm doing this for myself." _Hook had told him.

Emma would never be with him, and he couldn't blame her. Though is pride did.

As he was about to knock, through an open window, he could hear singing. He stood there, listening for a moment. He could hear the sound of cooing, a babies giggle. He felt himself smiling. It had been so long since he smiled.

His mother used to sing to him when he was a child.

She was humming now,

"_Sleep Phillip, close your eyes and in the morning sun will rise." _She sang.

_Phillip. _

That was her prince's name.

"_Goodnight my sweet boy." _He heard her say.

He stood on her doorstep for a moment, debating on whether he should knock or not. But before he could get the chance to flee, the pretty little princess opened the door.

"Oh,"

She was surprised to see him there.

(Surprised to see anyone on her doorstep so late at night)

"Your Majesty," he said with a crooked grin.

"What are you doing here, Hook?" She asked, making herself seem taller than she really was, trying her best to be strong. He was a ruthless pirate and he had taken advantage of her before. What was to stop him now?

"I heard you singing," he told her. "Quite lovely. Did one of your fairy godmothers gift you with song?" He asked. Though he already knew the answer. He knew her story – Cora had told it to him while they spent twenty eight years cursed in the protected part of the Enchanted Forest.

A princess cursed by a powerful witch only to be woken up by True Love's kiss.

She had been asleep during those twenty-eight years he spent in the Enchanted Forest. Not until Swan broke the curse was she awoken by her prince. (Only to have the noble prince die that very day) A sad tale indeed.

By the resourceful little princess found a way to bring her true love back and now had a child with him.

He envied the prince.

"Are you here to mock me, Hook?" She asks.

He chuckles. "No, Your Majesty, I am not."

Aurora huffs. Somehow she doesn't take him seriously.

(Should he take offence to that?)

"Your Majesty,"

"I am no Queen here, Hook." She tells him.

Her titles are gone; she is no longer a Queen. Perhaps she's a little thankful for that. No pressure of ruling a kingdom. She is nobody here, except to her husband and son. She can't remember the last time someone addressed her as Princess or Your Majesty.

In Storybrooke she is simply; _Aurora. _

"What shall I call you?" He asks.

"Nothing." Aurora replies.

He hides his sigh. _Of course she too hates me._

"Now if you wouldn't mind, please leave me be." She says before turning back, closing the door to her house.

"-I held your heart in my hand, M'lady." Hook said before she could shut the door on his face. Aurora turned slowly, looking to him. "And I know it's good."

She didn't speak; she simply continued to look at him. Perhaps she was trying to figure out what sort of rouse he was playing at now.

"_What is this? Some sort of Pirates Rouse?" _Her voice lingered in his head.

It was what she had asked him right after he had stolen her heart, woken up by him in the cave Cora kept her prisoner in.

His jaw tightened.

"I'm here to apologize to you." He finally gets out.

Aurora raises a brow.

More than surprised.

Because she can see it in his eyes.

He means it.

"Why?" She asks.

He sighs.

(Can't she just take the damn apology?)

"I've done many things to survive." Hook tells her. "I have hurt people, killed, betrayed, taken what was not mine to take – I have done all of this to survive so I could get my revenge on the man who took everything from me."

Aurora listened, not speaking.

"I loved a woman with all my heart and Rumpelstiltskin took her from me, crushed her heart in his hand while I watched-"

"Is that what Cora planned to do to my heart?" She asks. "When I wasn't useful anymore."

He doesn't blame her for hating him.

"I went out of my way to save your heart from falling through a portal." He reminds her. But Aurora scoffs and rolls her eyes.

(Not very princess like)

Mulan had told Aurora what had happened.

"_I may be a pirate, but I bristle at the thought of a woman losing her heart." _Mulan had told Aurora Hook said before he gave her Auroras heart. _"Unless it's over me."_

"-Continue on with your story," Aurora tells him. She doesn't need to hear about how he saved her heart from falling through a portal when he was the one to take, no, steal it in the first place.

"I spent three hundred years seeking vengeance." He continues. "I have wronged more people I can count on my, well, _hand_," He tries to joke. And for a moment, a millisecond, he thinks he sees her smile. "None more than I have wronged you." He finally gets out. "I should have apologized to you when I saw you again, in the Enchanted forest. But I was a coward. And I _hate _cowards. So here I am. Apologizing to a princess who is no longer a princess, asking her to forgive me. Asking her to pardon me from my crimes against her."

Aurora sighs, leaning against the door frame.

It has been a long day.

And the last thing she expected was to have a pirate standing on her doorstep in the middle of the night asking for forgiveness.

"Are you truly sorry, Hook?" She asks him.

"I am."

And he wasn't lying.

She can see that.

"I have everything I ever wanted." Aurora tells Hook. "I have a husband who loves me, a son that I adore. They are my world, and that world is good. There is no reason to hold on to my hatred for you."

Hook sighs, relieved that the pretty little princess who wore a lilac dress made of silks had forgiven him.

"I forgive you." She says the three words he was longing to hear.

He smiles.

"_But,_"

Oh Gods, there's a 'but'

"You have to make it up to me." She tells him.

(Was apologizing not enough?)

"How, Princess?"

She smiles. "By being my friend."

"A friend?"

He doesn't think he's been anyone's friend before.

A brother, a Captain, a lover – but never a friend.

"It's quite lonely here in Storybrooke." She tells him. "I could use a friend."

He thinks on it. "I suppose I could use a friend, too." He admits.

Aurora smiles at him.

And it's a genuine smile.

"Then friends we shall be." She declares. "Do you know where Granny's diner is?" She asks. He nods. "Tomorrow we will go there for tea."

(He, too, prefers tea over coffee)

He's a little taken back by her now. Was she that lonely that she'd enjoy a pirate who once stole her hearts company? And then he realizes it.

She's an outsider here.

Everyone else had twenty-eight years of living in Storybrooke.

This was unfamiliar to her.

He was an outsider too.

"What time?" He asks her.

"Noon." She tells him.

He smiles at her. "Tea at Noon." He says.

"At Granny's diner."

"At Granny's diner." He repeats.

He wasn't doing this because of guilt or pity.

He would like a friend.

"Goodnight, Hook." Aurora says with a smile.

"Goodnight, Princess."

She shuts the door and for the first time in three hundred years, Hook doesn't feel alone. And for the first time in his life, he has a friend.

Maybe Storybrooke wouldn't be such a bad place after all.


	2. Author's Note

I just wanted to let anyone who read this story that I will not be updating it on my FF site and have been updating it on my AO3 (archiveofourown) account under the username; **ohhitherekate** (The story has the same title as this one.) So you all can read it there if you'd like to.

-Katie


End file.
